Lukashenko wants identity of Belarusian villages intact

Villages should be developed but their identity should be left intact, said President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko as he visited the residential locality Khimy, Orsha District, on 11 May.

Alexander Lukashenko believes that manufacturing installations should be set up in villages to keep people employed but villages should not be converted into towns. It is necessary to revive the countryside in a way for people to live their lives conveniently, he said.

The residential locality Khimy is situated at the border between Vitebsk Oblast and Mogilev Oblast. There are 43 homesteads there including 35 dachas. Khimy’s resident population is only ten people and all of them are pensioners. The President was made familiar with a plan to revive Khimy. The place is supposed to grow into an agribusiness center. There are plans to create manufacturing and social spheres by 2015 there as well as the engineering infrastructure of a town.

There are plans to build an enterprise in Khimy to bottle mineral and fresh water and to build a confectionery factory. Fresh drinking water accounts for only 3% of the Earth’s water resources while the share of easily available fresh water is at most 2%. At present about 54% of the total available surface yield is used. Belarus has great prospects for stepping up the production of fresh drinking water. There are assured reserves of fresh and mineral water near Khimy. The output of the future enterprise to extract and bottle the water is supposed to reach 0.44 million hectoliters per annum. The project is estimated at nearly Br50 billion.

There are plans to build a confectionery factory in Khimy. It will focus on biscuit rolls, with the annual output capacity at 2,700 tonnes. The capacity will be sufficient to satisfy the home market demand. The investment project is estimated at Br40.5 billion. The project is supposed to return the investments within five years. Vitebsk Oblast Governor Alexander Kosinets said the factory will be built by the new year.

Apart from that, residential buildings, a shop, a rural health post, a public services center, a cafe, and a kindergarten will be built in Khimy.

Alexander Lukashenko approved of the projects but stressed that this village must not be converted into a town.

The head of state believes that objects should be built only when they are necessary. Nothing should be done out of artificial reasons, he said. Nothing should be built on farmlands, he stressed.

There are plans to build ten rural tourism estates in the village. The President believes if there are people willing to get busy with rural tourism, everyone will benefit out of it. However, state budget money cannot be involved in it.

There are plans to build a poultry factory to make duck meat not far from Khimy. Negotiations with foreign investors, who are willing to take part in the project, are already underway. The pay-off period is estimated at five years. Duck meat is expected to be in demand in Belarus with its low duck meat production and in Russia.

“We should act like this everywhere. People have lived here for centuries. It is necessary to set up the manufacturing base. We will develop the rest when time comes,” said Alexander Lukashenko.